International Days in Social Work 2022, 30 May - 3 June 2022

A total of 91 students and lecturers participated in the International Days in Social Work at the FH Upper Austria Linz Campus in June: 64 students and lecturers from the field of social work from 9 countries and 27 students from the in-house master's degree programme Social Work. The lecturers and students came from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Germany, Canada, Great Britain, Mexico, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the USA.

15 lectures and workshops took place, covering a wide range of different areas of social work. The World Café was especially well received on the first day with a presentation of all universities and countries including regional specialties.

The visitors also showed great interest in site visits to and presentations from the Violence Prevention Center (counselling for female victims), Plan B (foster care and adoption), LENA (social work with sex workers), Integration Office Linz, SOS Human rights (social work with asylum seekers) and Neustart (social work with offenders).

During the second week an additional programme for guests from the US and Canada was organised - 23 students and 2 lecturers from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and from the Nova Scotia Community College. Highlights during this week were visits to the Garsten Prison as well as visits to various social institutions such as SOS Human Rights, Streetwork and Caritas Wärmestube.

The leisure/cultural program included excursions to some of the most important sights in the region, such as the city of Salzburg, Hallstatt and the Mauthausen Memorial. Austrian beer culture was showcased during a visit to the Freistadt brewery and before the students could show their accuracy in archery.